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Suchomimus
Suchomimus ("crocodile mimic") is a genus of large spinosaurid dinosaur with a crocodile-like mouth that lived 112 million years ago, during the late Aptian stage of the Cretaceous Period in Africa. Sharing many traits with its larger Spinosaurus. Including raised dorsal vertabrae, a crocodile like head, and fish hook like claws. Description Unlike most large theropods, Suchomimus had a very long, low snout and narrow jaws studded with some 100 teeth, which were not very sharp and curving slightly backward. The tip of the snout was enlarged and carried a "rosette" of longer teeth. The animal is reminiscent of crocodilians that eat mainly fish, such as the living gharial, a type of large crocodile with a very long, slim snout, from the region of India. Suchomimus also had a tall extension of its vertebrae which may have held up some kind of low flap, ridge or sail of skin, as seen in much more exaggerated form in Spinosaurus. Detailed study shows that the specimen of Suchomimus was a subadult about 10.9 meters (36 ft) in length and weighing between 3-5 tons, but scientists think that it may have grown to about 12.1 meters (40 ft) long and 6 tons, approaching the maximum known size to theropods or carnivorous dinosaurs. The overall impression is of a massive and powerful creature that ate very big fish or simliar water-based food and presumably all other sorts of meat (carrion, if nothing else is aviable) more than 100 million years ago, when the Sahara was a lush, swampy habitat. Etymology and taxonomic history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Suchomimus_skeleton.jpgThere is a Mounted Suchomimus skeleton in the Chicago Children's Museum. Suchomimus tenerensis claws and teeth are also in Museo di Storia Naturale di Venezia. Suchomimus has been placed among the spinosaurids, a group of large predator-scavengers adapted for hunting fish and with less heavily-built skulls when compared to other similarly-sized theropods, like the tyrannosaurids or carnosaurs. Apart from the back ridge, Suchomimus was very similar to the spinosaurid ''Baryonyx'', which also had strong forelimbs and a huge sickle-curved claw on its "thumb". And, as with Baryonyx, the claw was the first fossil part to be noticed by palaeontologists. Suchomimus was considerably larger than Baryonyx, but a few paleontologists have suggested that the latter might almost have been a juvenile of the former. Discovery After discovering new specimens of ''Carcharodontosaurus'' and ''Sarcosuchus'', Chicago-based palaeontologist Paul Sereno and his team added a discovery in 1997. In the Sahara, near the Tenere Desert in Niger, they found fossils that represented about two-thirds of the skeleton of a huge meat-eater in the Tegama Bed of the Elrhaz Formation. This was named Suchomimus ("crocodile mimic") after the shape of its head. In Popular Culture Suchomimus was slated to appear in the summer blockbuster, Jurassic World but was only shown on the official website as concept art. Suchomimus did eventually appear in the official Jurassic World mobile game as a Legendary Carnivore that can be acquired by beating Battle Stage 47. At the moment Suchomimus costs 2,630 DNA and takes 32:17:00 to hatch. Category:Dinosaurs Category:Theropods Category:Cretaceous Category:Dinosaurs of Africa Category:Piscivores Category:Spinosaurids Category:Carnivores